Supply Management Orientation and its Effect on Buyer/Supplier Performance: Some Insights from

Abstract: The supply chain management literature emphasises the need and importance of Supply Management Orientation (SMO) and its impact on Supplier Performance (SP) and Buyer Performance (BP). In this paper, we study these hypotheses in Indian automobile industries taking up the companies that are closely associated with an automobile giant in India. We study the confirmatory analysis of these constructs of the SMO impacting SP and BP in the first phase. In the second phase, we expand the scope of the constructs and variables as encountered in the present study and verify all the hypotheses relating to SMO, BP and SP using structural equations modeling. In the third phase, we study the buyer-supplier relationships with behavioural variables and study the dimensions on which the relationships can be strengthened. Best practices in supply chain management emphasise that companies that work in close partnership with their key vendors are able to take advantage of their suppliers ' special competencies, leveraging them to achieve significant operational, economic and productivity benefits. Not surprisingly, many high performing companies employ supplier partnerships as a tool to help expan